Cold Skin [Paperback]

Have never written a review here before, but am driven to do so by feeling that most reviews here/on the US site/in the press have partly at least missed the point. Partly, maybe, because in the English edition, I gather, a crucial part of the Spanish text has been cut. (I live on a Spanish island so read it in Spanish.)

So far so simple. Disillusioned Irishman takes job as meterologist on uninhabited antarctic island; finds himself living in a lighthouse besides a brutalised South African and his monster housekeeper/lover, beseiged by the latter's people, humanoid frogs, from the depths of the sea. So far so Poe, so Lovecraft (both addictions once of this reviewer.) But in all the brutality humanity, subtlety intrudes. Pinol, the writer, is Catalan; his characters, Irish, South African, and, briefly at the end, Jewish. All of them, it should be noted people from places where one nation/people is or has been in brutal conflict with another people whom in every case they have tended to demonise. The cut section of the text tells of the main character's struggles in the IRA, the establishment of free Eire, and his disillusionment on discovering that under de Valera the injustices go on. He is someone therefore who understands that the monsters, the humans, exist on both sides; inside us all. This is important.

He and the South African, Batis, fight for their lives against the monsters; using grenades, rifles, eventually dynamite, salvaged from a shipwreck, below the sea. It is during the salvage of this most brutal of all their weapons that humanity surfaces. In a beautiful scene reminiscent of the whale nursery in Moby Dick - the absolute calm and peace below the savagery of the whalers on the surface of the sea - the Irishman encounters the frog nursery; is beseiged by curious tadpoles, touching him, playing with him. And when later after the mass slaughter created by the dynamite, the always unnamed Irishman begins to realise that there have to be other answers, when he listens to the sex slave, housekeeper, at last, understands she has a name, that her people have a name and makes his first conciliatory gesture, what do they do? - they send him their children; whom he plays with delightedly. He even adopts one of them, an orphan, a youngster who clearly reminds him of his own brutalised childhood in an orphanage. 'My triangulo' he calls him.

The South African refuses to understand this change of heart. The horrors continue. He eventually walks to death by monsters. The Irishman misses him, despite his previous loathing; fights, gets drunk, abuses the sex slave, his strongs feeling/love for whom, he the unloved one cannot deal with. His replacement the Jewish boy arrives. All other reviewers suggest that the cycle is about to begin again. Yes, in a way; the Irishman too by now, is almost as brutalised as Batis the South African; he is discovered by his replacement just as Batis first was, dead drunk. But not quite. The last words of the book has the Irishman crying out for his Triangulo, his baby.

Poe and Lovecraft didn't make me weep, the way this almost did. Lovecraft's horrors, his monsters, were always 'nameless.' The naming of the irishmen's monsters is what matters about this book. It's an important one, I think. As well as unputdownable, even to someone forced like me to read with a dictionary to hand.

Incidentally, I looked for Cold Skin first because of a complaint by its publisher that it had sunk without trace in the UK. More fools us, the British. It should be read. And enjoyed. Oh and thought about. Please.

After reading the wonderful 'Shadow of the Wind' by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, I was rather keen to read another book of Spanish origin. Although this book was first published in Catalan in 2002, it has recently been published in the UK.

Albert Sanchez Pinol reminds me of Carlos Ruiz Zafón. There is something attractive about the book and its delivery. Although the storyline of a researcher taking up a job on a remote island where not much happens isn't really the most inspiring concept for a book, the added dimension of roaming sea-creatures and the independence of a stubborn predecessor makes things a little more tense. Albert Sanchez Pinol places the reader into the shoes of the main character, sharing his fears, emotions and jubilations.

There is some great emotion between the three main characters. The island's climate and remoteness really adds atmosphere to this creative book.

Overall, this strange but imaginative book is well crafted and deserves recognition that it truly deserves.

With his second book soon due for publication, Albert Sanchez Pinol is a Spanish author to make note of during 2007-2008.

This is always and interesting and captivating read, their is suspense and intrigue a plenty. A genuine page turner. It is not the plot that harnesses these emotions, rather the protaganists slow descent into his own 'perception' of madness. His irrational justification of his actions and ideas comapred to those of his comrade 'Gruner' slowly truning him into everything he initially despises.

What lets the book down is that their is no further commentary on mankinds slef-destructive nature, its contradictory love and hate relationship with other species nor its bewildering lack of ability to stop the same mistakes happening repeatedly. The book limps to an undramatic, some what predictable ending and it made me want to start singing the 'circle of life'. The book had set me up for more and so it left me feeling a little short changed.

The characters are generally wholly un appealling, with virtually no charm and less wit. I wonder how much hunour has been lost in the translation. So an emotional connection was lacking.

That aside it is intelligent and interesting writing and worth a read.